


Love Scars

by 221b_hound



Series: Guitar Man [57]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Protective Sherlock, Scars, life and the marks it makes, love and acceptance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-19
Updated: 2013-08-22
Packaged: 2017-12-24 00:18:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/932802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/221b_hound/pseuds/221b_hound
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life leaves its mark; some scars are deliberate, some are accidents, and some are the outward signs of love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from 'Love Hurts' by the Everly Brothers.

“Hard day at the office, dear?” asks Mary in a teasing tone when Sherlock comes into Baker Street late one afternoon. She is reclined on the sofa, her feet in Nirupa’s lap, decadently and unrepentantly enjoying the footrub she’s receiving. Nirupa has strong, long, nimble hands and Mary has very sore feet.

(Sherlock has thought before that Nirupa’s hands are well designed for handling delicate scientific equipment; but they are equally expressive in the non-verbal communication of a dozen cultures, and Sherlock appreciates skill in many scientific disciplines, so declines to think of it as a waste.)

“Dreadfully tiring,” he responds to Mary’s jest in a like tone as he removes and hangs his coat, “Lucas messed up the accounts, Helena tried to pass Suresh’s work off as her own, and the divisional manager sacked the lot of them. Oh, and then Lucas murdered the _area_ manager by mistake. Another botch job of course, which is the only reason he nearly got away with it. The motive was obscure because it was a _mistake_.”

“Good thing you were on the spot to fix it all up then,” says Mary in a prim tone she imagines is housewife-ish. “Hope you get a thank you card from the CEO this time.”

“I was hoping at least for a mention in the Christmas Newsletter,” Sherlock says as he hangs his scarf over his coat, and smiles when he makes Mary giggle.

This is when John comes into the living room, dressed only in his pyjama pants, barefoot and bare-chested, though his torso is mainly obscured by the little bundle wrapped a soft blanket.

“Who soaked Daddy’s shirt through with bathwater, hmm?” John is asking the infant, who claims responsibility by squealing happily and wriggling in her swaddling. “Who’s my little mermaid?” Violet’s gummy mouth opens and with a shout of ‘YAH!’ claims that title as well.

Sherlock knows certain things, and sees several more.

John, who usually and unobtrusively does not reveal his scar more often than necessary, is perfectly comfortable with it being on view in their flat and in this company.

Mary of course has seen the scar before, and is unfazed by it.

Nirupa has not seen the scar before, but knows of it, and spares the puckered dent in John’s shoulder, and the matching, more sprawling scar of the exit wound on his back, not a second glance. Barely a first, really.

Nirupa is, of course, familiar with scars as deliberate marks of ritual, as brands of accident as well as design. In some cultures, scars are almost part of a language. Nirupa has scars both ritualistic and circumstancial of her own, as do they all, here.

John’s scars, large and small, are part of the landscape of who he is, now. Whatever regrets and sorrow they came with, they have other meanings too. A scar in the scalp that denotes the loss of his mother and the blind hurting rage of his father, both of which informed the trajectory of his fortunes; the bullet scar that ended one kind of life and heralded another. Pain and blood exacted a price, but he has fetched up on this shore, the safe harbour of Baker Street. It certainly could all have ended in worse places; including death.

Sherlock’s fingers drift lightly towards the scar on his own mouth, those in his inner elbow, others along his ribs. He, too, has a map of scars, all of which are significant, yet none of which really matter.

 _John trusts us absolutely_ , Sherlock thinks, as the man himself sprawls on the floor beside the sofa, unwraps the baby and lays her on his belly.

“And whose other Daddy is going to fetch your sleep suit after this Daddy left it in the bedroom, hmm?” John says to Violet, who slaps her little fists against his chest. John laughs, holding onto his daughter so she doesn’t roll off. She lists to one side, still held securely, and her baby fist is thrown out in Sherlock’s direction.

Sherlock bows to the inevitable and goes to the bedroom to fetch the little green sleep suit, and thinks that one day Violet’s body will bear marks and maps of its own. It can’t be helped.

But he will help it if he can. If it is humanly possible, he will not let the world scar her at all.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Violet at three years of age is learning new things and new words all the time. Today she learns the word 'scar'.

Mary hears the pair of them squabbling in the hall for a good minute before one of them manages to get the key in the lock. 

 She could have opened the door, of course, but then she might have missed entertaining exchanges like: 'What part of "stop" did you fail to grasp, John?"/"What part of the laws of physics and momentum did you delete, you twat?'; and 'for a genius you are at times a miserable fathead'/'for a fathead, John, you are a... no. Just a fathead.'

 But the key turns in the lock and the door opens with a bang, accompanied by irritated huffing and squelching noises. John turns an apologetic look on her.

 "Sorry, Mary."

 "Date night is off, I take it?" She'd been looking forward to a night out - dinner, maybe dancing - while Nirupa took care of Violet, but to be honest, whatever this is, it looks hilarious.

 "Until I wring the Thames out of my underwear at least." 

"I told you to stop," Sherlock says waspishly, dripping murky waters just to the right of the welcome mat. 

_"At the edge of the bridge,_ " snarls John, " _After I'd started the dive._ " John is dripping a matching pool of scummy riverwater, though he is making some attempt to stay on the mat. Much good it does. There's quite a lot of water.

"So now we're both soaked through," Sherlock is not in the mood for censure, "Brilliant. Scintillating."

 "And it's not like the dog even had the ring on his collar after all."

 "Why do you suppose I told you to stop?"

 The argument continues while John and Sherlock peel off outer layers and start into Mary and Nirupa's flat, heading for the bathroom. Mary wonders how Sherlock ended up as wet as John during this debacle, but the point becomes clear as Sherlock rounds on John with a blistering "I thought you could swim. Did you somehow forget how to do that in the last month? Or was it just a ploy to get revenge on me for failing to shout Stop in time?"

 "Yeah, I took a leaf out of your book and deleted it. Useless stuff. Why do I need to know how not to drown in the fucking Thames? You utter dick. The water was freezing. I cramped. That shoulder doesn't have full mobility, as you might recall if you fucking cared to."

 "There are strokes besides the Australian crawl you could employ."

 "Yeah, right, because none of the other ones put strain at all on a cramping rotator cuff that got shot all to buggery."

Sherlock does this thing, this pursing of his mouth and a glance away down and to the side, and Mary knows he feels bad about what happened, about needing to dive in and haul John out of the river. She doesn't know if John has seen it, and Sherlock shifts back to a defiant posture quickly.

They have reached the bathroom and John strides in first, Sherlock on his heels, both barefoot and down to trousers now. They collide in the doorway and there is scowling and a scuffle and they both go in and the door slams.

Mary stands at the door, giggling, when Nirupa comes up, with three-year-old Violet in her arms. Violet chews a knuckle, stares at the door.

"Bath time for Daddy and Sirlock," she observes. She hasn't quite mastered 'Sh' yet.

"Yes, baby, Silly Daddy and Silly Sherlock are all muddy."

The complaints about who gets the first shower, the state of John's clothes, the state of Sherlock's hair, the _oh my god what is this in my pants? is that a leech? Fuck, well, it looks like one, I don't care if it's just vegetable matter, Sherlock, this is not acceptable!_ \- all of it makes Nirupa roll her eyes. 

Violet grins. "Puck a leeeeeeech!" she says. 

"Puck it completely," Mary agrees. 

More shouting, more complaints, a shower running, stopping, running again, thumping, what seems to be a tussle over the towels, someone crashing into the wash basket and then John apparently collapsing into helpless giggles.

Mary and Nirupa make a strategic withdrawal as the door opens and John, a towel around his waist, darts down to Mary's room where he knows he'll find some spare clothes

Sherlock emerges with his hair a wild tangle and wrapped in Nirupa's long silk robe, tied tightly at the waist. The right side of the robe bears the motif of a Bird of Paradise plant, stridently orange and pale green against the dark green background. 

  
_Honestly_ , thinks Mary, _it's like a French farce around here sometimes._

Sherlock tugs the robe around himself more closely and gives Nirupa a challenging glare.

"Oh, be my guest," she says, with a grin.

He rolls his eyes at her, then stops to give Violet a kiss hello.

"Muddy Sirlock needs a clean!" says Violet.

"Muddy Sherlock needs a change of clothes," he says in reply, "I suppose I should keep a set here for emergencies."

"I like that," Violet points emphatically at the robe, "It's pretty. You look pretty, Sirlock."

"Thank you," he says solemnly, "You look nice, too."

John joins them, dressed in jeans but shirtless, towelling his hair dry.

 "Daddy!"  

"Baby girl!" 

 Father-daughter kisses are exchanged and John scoops his girl up for a hug. He carries her to the sofa and drops down on it. Violet manages a controlled landing so she ends up standing on his thighs. She pats his face while he kisses her fingers, then pats his chest. 

 She becomes fascinated by the scar on his left shoulder. She's familiar with it of course, but it's almost like it's the first time she's really noticed it. She pats the healthy skin, then the ridge of scar tissue. She traces her fingers over and over the dent. 

 Mary wonders if she should distract the child, but John is just watching her explore his skin. It's hard to tell what he's thinking. She's seen him go guarded like that before, about his scar. He doesn't like it to be a big deal. She can see Sherlock watching them too. Nirupa has withdrawn to make tea.

 Violet, meanwhile, prods the dent, the skin and muscle, stands on her toes and peers over her father's shoulder at his back. She reaches over and pats at the bigger scar there with her soft, chubby hands.

 "Daddy has an ouch," she says. It's the term she's been using lately. Sherlock has been trying to teach her words like 'injury', 'contusion' and 'subcutaneous haematoma' but she just looks at him like he's mad and giggles. 

"A big ouch, yes." 

Violet's eyes are large with curiosity and concern. "Does it hurt?" 

"Not any more. It's very old, from before I met Mummy and Rupe or even Sherlock."

"Are you all better?"

"All better now."

"It gets stiff some days," Sherlock supplies suddenly, "Especially when it's cold like today. I... forget, sometimes."

 The look John gives Sherlock is a complicated thing, part forgiveness, part irritation, part affection, part exasperation.

 "Poor Daddy's ouch," says Violet, "I kiss it better," and she plants a sloppy kiss on the smaller scar, the way all four of her parents give her kisses to make it better when she falls or bumps her head. She draws back and pats the hard tissue again.  "It feels funny."

 "If you get a big ouch and then it gets better, sometimes the skin goes pale and hard like that," John says, his voice low and even, "It's called a _scar_."

 Violet considers this information. "Mummy has a scar on her tummy and Rupe has a scar on her leg and Sirlock has a scar on his side and his tummy and his hands and his mouth. Sirlock has lots of scars. I kiss them better too."

 John flicks a glance at Sherlock, as does Mary, and the detective is very still, seemingly caught between pride at Violet's skills of observation and regret that she is so aware of all his old hurts.

 Violet wriggles off John's lap and toddles over to Sherlock. He has to maneouvre a bit to maintain his modesty in the silk robe as she clambers into this lap, stands on his thighs and stares earnestly into this face. He does her the honour of letting her scrutinise him without comment.

 She pats the scar at the corner of his mouth. "Poor ouch."

 "It's nothing, Violet," he tells her.

 She wetly kisses the side of his mouth anyway.

 She peers at him further, imitating his penetrating stare, but then she sees something that he never knew she could. After patting and kissing a scar she can see on his chest in the V of the robe, and lifting up his hands to kiss better a scattering of white lines from various accidents with test tubes and acid, she stops at the inside of his elbow on his left arm. The track marks are almost invisible.

Almost.

 She goes to kiss them and Sherlock flinches, pulls away.

Violet is immediately full of childish concern. "Does it hurt?" 

Sherlock swallows, and is annoyed with himself at the response. 

"No."

"Was it a big ouch? Does it hurt a lot?"

He does not know how to explain that the scars are a hundred tiny pains embraced to conceal a larger one that is long healed. Sherlock does not buy into shame, generally. It was a time in his life when the drugs made more sense than anything else. It happened, it helped, and then it didn't help, and then it stopped, and that is that. He never lies to Violet (even when her other parents think he should) but he really does not care to share the truth of this with her. Not now. She's only three. But even at three, she deserves some kind of truth.

"Not any more," he says carefully, "Your Uncle Greg and your Daddy helped to make it better."

"I want to make it better, too," she pouts.

"You do."

"No. I have to _kiss_ it better," she insists, "It's the _rule_."

Sherlock tries to block out the way Mary and John, and now Nirupa, watch them both while trying not to watch, not to intrude: everyone holding a breath. He holds his arm up and Violet kisses the inside of his arm with a loud, wet, noisy smack of her lips. A big kiss for a big ouch.

Then she grins up at him. "All better?"

 His reply is delayed while he clears his throat. "All better," he agrees. 

Violet's expression is full of pride - and then she is all giggles and shrieks as Sherlock ducks his head to pretend-bite her fingers. "Don't, don't, don't!" she shrieks while making no actual effort to escape, "Don't eat me up!" He manages to get to her belly and blow a raspberry (and narrowly avoid being accidentally kicked in the bollocks - that's fatherhood for you) before letting her squirm free and run across the carpet to Nirupa.

 "Rupe, Rupe, don't let Sirlock eat me!"

 Laughing, Nirupa drops to her knees and makes zombie-hands and gnashing-teeth motions at her. " _I'll_ eat you up!"

John and Mary jump to their feet, crouch down and chase Violet all over the living room, threatening to _eat you all up_ until Violet turns on them, bares her teeth and says "I'll eat YOU all up!" and chases them in turn.

By evening's end, Sherlock has commandeered a pair of Nirupa's most sensible cotton knickers (plain duck egg blue, with a little silk bow on the waist - a fact which gives John teasing fodder for at least six months), one of her oversized T-shirts and a sarong. He is lying on his back on the sofa, more or less respectable now, and explaining the case of the seeing-eye labrador, the stolen diamond ring, how you must never underestimate anyone just because they can't see or hear or have only one arm, and how her Daddy is the most graceless diver the world has ever seen.  

Nirupa is on the floor, on her stomach, chin propped in  her hands, listening. She's rapt in the details and asking salient questions, though Violet, belly-down on the carpet beside her, fell asleep long ago. 

John has pinched a T-shirt from Mary's drawer (he wears her shirts sometimes; he likes the way they smell and how that makes him feel cosy and a little bit aroused). He and Mary are dancing in the kitchen to the radio, kissing, cuddling. _Canoodling_.

As date nights go, it hasn't been too bad.

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A tale from an adventurous childhood tell the story of two scars; another story remains untold, but Ford is old enough and smart enough to guess at some of it.

Sherlock and Mycroft both insist that five is not too young for someone to begin learning first aid. They are not entirely correct. Sherrinford is a very smart five year old, it’s true, and his best friend and chief co-mischief maker is six, but the combination of the two of them isn’t conducive to serious study. 

The adults make the cardinal mistake of getting distracted by phone calls and turning around five minutes later to find the kids have scarpered. All is well, of course. The troublemakers turn up not ten minutes later, Sherrinford wrapped haphazardly in bandages, with Billy the Martian cartoon bandaids stuck all over his face and ears, doing a mummy lurch-and-shuffle while Violet leaps about pretending to be an Egyptologist fighting off the evil curse.

Everyone makes a better job of it a few years later. John makes sure everyone knows the drill for checking that someone is conscious or breathing, that the environment is safe to approach someone who is injured, the emergency number to call (both 999 and the Special Emergency Number that goes straight to Mycroft’s office). Simple dressings and bandaging techniques are also on the curriculum.

John and Sherlock insisted on live patients for the practising of making slings and bandages – a dummy can’t tell you if the wrapping is too tight, after all.

Ford, eight years old, conscientiously makes a bandage and sling for his mother’s shoulder, for the scar she doesn’t talk about. He has seen his father run a thumb over the vertical line of hardened tissue, and then Mummy and Daddy smile at each other. An odd smile, part sorrow, part tenderness. He doesn’t understand that smile, but he knows the scar is important. He knows that it means his mother was badly hurt, long ago, and though she’s fine now, he doesn’t like to think of her hurt. So he bandages it as taught and puts her arm in a sling.

He also makes a neat bandage for his father’s left hand, the pinky of which doesn’t bend properly. He doesn’t’ know the story of that finger, either, although he has observed enough to know there is some link between that and his mother’s scar. There’s a secret in the way his parents smile at each other over both marks. 

There’s also small scar on the webbing between thumb and forefinger on his father’s right hand. He has just learned that story, and the story of the scar on Sherlock’s mouth. 

“That was a day of absolute carnage,” Sherlock has told the gathered family over morning tea, before the bandaging begins, “Mycroft – he was eleven – had stolen the first summer strawberries and the gardener was furious. He took up a shovel, Ford, and chased your father all around the grounds and into the greenhouse. I was trying to help Mycroft get away – he’d promised me half the strawberries after all – so I got under Baxter’s feet to trip him over.”

Ford’s daddy’s face creases in a delighted grin. “Sherlock tripped everyone over, right into cook’s tomato bed, due to a combination of the tricorn hat obscuring his vision, the too-long frock coat he’d found in the attic and the silverware he was using as a cutlass.”

“By the time the bodies were removed from the pile, with me at the bottom,” says Sherlock, expression serious, like he’s explaining a mystery, though his eyes are cheerful, “we found I’d stabbed Mycroft through the hand with a very expensive butter knife and I was smeared in crushed tomatoes and a certain amount of blood. I looked like a murder victim.”

“The knife shouldn’t really have been sharp enough to do much damage,” says Mycroft, eyes also dancing with merriment, “But Sherlock had spent the morning stropping it sharp as a dagger to act as an appropriately menacing pirate sword.”

“Baxter took one look at all the blood and crushed tomatoes – and likely couldn’t tell where one stopped and the other began – and he took off like a frightened whippet. He disappeared within the hour and gave his notice by telegram.” Sherlock sounds well pleased with the result.

“But Hanff the cook came out to see what the fuss was about and dress us down for despoiling the tomato crop,” continues Mycroft, “And Sherlock took one look at her face and decided discretion had several significant points over valour.”

Sherlock rolls his eyes but then admits: “You’d never been walloped by the soup ladle for experimenting with the pudding, so I will forgive your lack of sympathy for my very sensible strategy of withdrawal.”

“Which came to nought when, looking behind to see where she was, you tripped over your coat and ran face first into the palm tree Father was trying to re-pot.”

Sherlock fingers the mark on his lip. “It was a tactical error, wearing the coat, I concede. Had I known you would be caught thieving and end up running for your life, I would have worn more appropriate costume.” 

“Well, you were only four, and it was a costume for an older child, some generations old.”

John’s response to the tale is to giggle, then break into helpless laughter and, in lieu of explanation, wave towards the Belstaff hanging on its hook. He gasps ‘Birmingham” and dissolves into giggles again. Sherlock remains aloof. John does not elucidate.

After cake and tea, there were bandages and secret smiles. When Ford has wrapped his mother’s shoulder and his father’s left hand, he regards their unusual soft-sad-happy-tender smiles and fetches a shock blanket. He drapes it over the both of them, kisses first his father, then his mother, and declares: “There. They don’t matter any more. You’re both all better now.” He nods at the bandages; at what lies underneath them.

Tears come to his mother’s eyes. His father leans over and kisses her cheek and says: “yes, we are.”

And maybe Ford doesn’t know the facts, but he knows other things. He's a genius, too, after all. He can deduce things as well as the next Holmes.

By the time he is done, Ford has bandaged his parents, Sherlock, John, Mrs Hudson and Violet, who keeps play-acting extravagant mortal wounds and giggling. She has a recent scar, a white mark on her knee from falling out of a tree two months ago and landing inopportunely on a sharp stone. Ford was super impressed that she yelled a fantastic swear but didn’t cry. 

He finishes his first aid course by sticking a dozen Billy the Martian bandaids (still popular, and in any case, Sherlock had bought a case of them three years ago because Ford liked them) all over Violet’s knee.

That afternoon, Not Anthea has to discreetly remove a Billy the Martian bandaid from her boss’s right hand before his meeting with the Exchequer, and Mycroft finds another attached to the back of Sally’s neck when he gets home. 

John has to remind Sherlock that he has a Billy bandaid on his lip when they’re called to a crime scene. (John thinks Sherlock deliberately leaves these things on, so that people can see there are children who love him; though it’s just as likely that Sherlock just doesn’t care what other people think and he leaves bandaids, hairclips, pen marks and glitter on so that the children know that he loves them).

Sherlock doesn’t bother telling John that he has a Billy bandaid stuck on the arse of his jeans, because he both genuinely doesn’t care and because it reminds him of the afternoon, and the story of he and Mycroft as children, which no longer hurts to remember.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At a school dance, cocaine and a needle have been found in Violet's possession. Sherlock is the parent on call. Cocaine, betrayal, mercy, and the badges love leaves on our skin.

Sherlock is the one who gets the call from the teacher. Mary and John have taken off for a romantic weekend in Portugal (a destination which Sherlock cannot combine with 'romance' in any way, but there's no accounting for taste) and Nirupa is giving a paper at a symposium in the Haag. So when there is trouble, Sherlock is the parent to call.

Sherlock is a good driver, though not necessarily what might be called a _safe_ driver. He trusts to his instincts and reflexes to nip and dart through traffic at just enough above the speed limit to not be worth being pulled over, but fast enough. He avoids three collisions through skill alone, and is possibly the cause of a minor bingle as he barrels through a light just before the change.

 _How did I miss it?_ he's thinking. _I didn't. I couldn't have. Therefore, the facts are wrong, or the interpretation of the facts is wrong. Of course. Idiots, the lot of them. I would know if Violet was an addict. If anyone would know that, I would. Therefore, she is not. There has been a mistake. I will fix this. I will fix this and I will flay alive anyone who harms her._  

Sherlock almost never doubts himself. And he has never doubted Violet. Yet...

And yet.

He remembers. He remembers choices made because they seemed to be the only ones left. He remembers wanting to calm the storm in his head, and finding only one way to do it. He remembers defiance and rage and despair and how a simple solution and a simpler needle gave him respite, if only for a while. 

Violet has not done this thing, but if she has, if she has done this unthinkable thing he will.... he will...

And Sherlock remembers all the attempts to stop him, to help him, to cure him, to deny him, to fix him and it was all for nothing. Most of it didn't touch him; some of it made everything worse. Greg Lestrade literally saved his life, and when Sherlock woke up, _surprised_ that he had woken up, he realised that the simple solution was no longer a solution, that what had helped no longer helped, and he chose a different path.

Sherlock thinks: _if it's true, and I can't work out how to help her, then I will... I'll.._

He tugs on the wheel, shaves a corner close, saving only seconds on the journey maybe, but they all count. He mustn't get pulled over, he couldn't bear the delay, but he must get there as soon as possible.

 _I will offer her my arm_ , he decides _, if nothing else will stop her, I will offer her my arm and take the cocaine with her. If I can't save her, I'll go down that path with her. I will not let her be alone. I will not let her walk that path alone. I don't care if I go down with her, as long as she's not alone like I..._

He stamps on the brake in front of the hall and dismisses that train of thought as sentimental, destructive and not in the least helpful.

Which isn't to say he won't choose it, if he can't offer Violet anything else.

He runs to the door, ignoring the loud music and the sound/scent of the close-packed bodies of dancing teenagers. He runs past a clump of kids having a furtive smoke by the bushes. As he bursts into the hall, a teacher is there to intercept him. She grabs Sherlock by the elbow and tugs him aside.

"Mr Holmes, it’s Mrs Braithwaite. We've put Violet in the caretaker's office," she says.

"Where's Chloe Hooper-Lestrade?" Sherlock demands. This is Chloe's school dance. Chloe, 15, had invited Violet along as her sort-of-date, on the logic that Violet was a good friend, and good fun, and (Sherlock knew, although Chloe hadn't said as much) Violet was meant to the perfect wing-man for the evening. "They were here together."

"We're looking for her now."

That's ominous. But first things must come first.

Sherlock strides down the hall - he doesn't need anyone to show him the way to a location that can so easily be deduced - and throws open the door to the caretaker's office.

Violet glares at him. She is furious. He hasn't seen her in such a rage, nor such rage directed at him, since that awful year she didn't want to know him. It stops him like a wall.

The man who is never timid says: "Violet?"

"If you believe one word of that lie for an instant, I’ll never speak to you again."

The relief that floods through him is only noticeable through the slight hitch in his breath, a remnant twitch in his fingers. Then all is calm and still in his head once more. "Don't be ridiculous."

Violet scowls but nods, satisfied. 

"A fit-up?"

"It's... more complicated than that."

Sherlock knows it’s wrong to feel a zing of pleasure at the words, because this is Violet, but he is who he is.

"Tell me."

"Some fart-doodle planted this stuff on Chloe. She told me about this guy at school who was stealing from the science lab. She warned him off and said she'd report him if he didn't stop right away. Next thing, I see some dude going to a teacher and pointing at Chloe, and you know, he _looked_ like a fart-doodle. So I got to Chloe's bag and grabbed the stuff out first - a needle and a foil. Arsehole. Then that idiot teacher found it on _me_ before I could ditch it and wouldn't listen when I tried to explain."

"Did you see him plant it in Chloe’s bag?"

"I didn't have to _see_ it, did I?" she says scornfully. Sherlock grins. He's taught her well.

"But he's meant to be a Grade A student, and other people do _love_ direct evidence, don't they?" Violet sighs her bitter disappointment then raises her chin to glare over his shoulder at the sounds coming down the passage.

The teacher from earlier - Sherlock thinks she might have introduced herself, but he wasn't interested enough to listen - brings Chloe into the room. Chloe has been crying.

"Violet!" Chloe pulls away from the teacher's grip on her arm and rushes to her friend, who wraps her in a hug, but does not stop glaring at the teacher.

"You will show some manners, young lady," the teacher snaps at Violet.

"I will when you stop being an _idiot_ ," ripostes Violet. Sherlock knows he's not supposed to encourage her in being disrespectful to adults, but honestly, the woman _is_ an idiot and Sherlock is not going to berate Violet for so intelligently noticing this fact.

Instead of agreeing with Violet, however, he gives the teacher a tight smile and starts pushing her out the door and closing it in her face simultaneously. "Thank you, yes, you've been most helpful," he says before _snick_. The door is closed.

"Now," he says, turning, "The facts."

The door opens again. The teacher, red-faced, is saying something about drug paraphernalia and police charges. She is shaking a plastic bag at him. Sherlock takes it from her with an 'Ah, yes, evidence, good' before shutting the door on her face once more. Then he opens it, says: "Be an angel, call Detective Inspector Lestrade. I have his home number if you need it. Tell him to arrest..." he turns to Chloe, "Name?"

Chloe straightens, scrubs her damp face clean, and sets her jaw to 'determined'. "Jez Palmer. He'll have dumped the rest of the gear by now, if he brought any more. I think he might have just brought enough to incriminate _me_."

"Well, maybe _I'll_ have a little word with him, then." Sherlock turns back to the teacher, who has lost track of the exchange completely, "Would you mind fetching the little bastard then? There's another office down the hall which should hold him nicely. I suppose you'd better fetch one of his parents while you're at it."

"I..."

"Master Palmer is accused of theft and trying to frame a fellow student for drug use. You can ask him to have a word with me now, with DI Lestrade in half an hour or a police escort later on. Up to you, of course." He closes the door in her face again.

Chloe is composed again, pale and calm, but there's a simmering anger held in check. Violet strokes her arm. Chloe shakes her off.

"I tried to give him a chance," says Chloe crisply, "Because I liked him. I am the most stupid teenager _in the world_."

"No you aren't," counters Violet, "He is. A moron, on multiple counts."

Sherlock isn't sure how to comfort Chloe, whose rage seems directed at herself as much as at the unspeakable Jez Palmer. Chloe is sometimes so like her mother, and at other times so like her father, and right now she seems balanced perfectly between the two of them, and is therefore completely herself.

"It is not _your_ fault he was not worthy of your regard," says Sherlock carefully, "Your grace does you no disservice; his abuse of it gives him no credit."

Chloe blinks at him, then smiles, a bit quizzically.

The next hour sees Sherlock deducing (and reducing to tears) the teacher (Mrs Braithwaite, it turns out), Jez Palmer, Jez Palmer's dad, and Jez Palmer's best mate Brandon Fuller. Lestrade declines to arrest anyone, giving out warnings left and right, but the steeliness of his glare does nothing to reassure the Palmers or young Fuller. Lestrade knows Palmer and Fuller senior, and the sons have visited a lot of embarrassment on the fathers. Punishment will be meted out from closer quarters than a courtroom.

On the way back to the Hooper-Lestrade home in separate cars, Violet demands to know why Lestrade would let the 'fart-doodle' get away with it.

Sherlock, driving much more circumspectly now that the world isn't ending, knows. "Sending Palmer to detention now would likely make a lifelong criminal out of him. Lestrade is trusting that the boy has been given enough of a fright to scare him straight."

"Do you think it'll work?"

"It may. Lestrade has shown good judgement on this issue in the past."

He doesn't flinch when Violet reaches out to rub her hand along his forearm. Under his shirt and coat, the track marks of his past feel the passage of her fingers through the cloth.

"I would never," she says.

He wants to say 'I know'. What he says is: "Lives do not always take the paths we planned."

She squeezes the muscle under her hand. "I'm sorry for whatever made you pick that path."

Sherlock swallows. "It was.... it made sense at the time."

"You must have been so lonely."

Sherlock blinks. 

"I'm glad Uncle Greg looked out for you. Maybe Jez will turn out all right after all. You did."

She smiles at him, and he smiles back. She withdraws her hand and folds it with the other one in her lap. She watches the taillights of the leading car containing Greg and Chloe. They will go to the Hooper-Lestrades and Molly will make hot chocolate and they'll talk and everything will be all right.

Violet looks at Sherlock again. She _sees_ him, Sherlock knows, almost in the way that only John ever has. 

"I know you don’t like me noticing them," she says, and does not need to elaborate. _The needle marks. The scars on his body, the marks of violence_. She has scars too, he knows. For all that he wanted to spare her, he couldn't, and there is a map on her body of mishaps and accidents. Nothing given to her deliberately, though. No harm done to her through malice or anger. He would destroy anyone who tried.

His silence doesn't faze her. "Do you know what Aunt Molly says about scars?"

Sherlock shakes his head minutely.

"She says that with her job, she sees scars all the time, as well as the wounds that kill people. And the thing about scars is that you only get them if you survive. Some scars are bad and some of them slow you down a lot, but if you have a scar, life tried to kill you and didn't succeed."

"Is that what she says?"

"I was asking her about hers, you know, the one from the c-section when she had Chloe. And she said she didn't mind it. She could have died, or Chloe could have died, but they didn't. The scar proves she outlived death, because the dead don't heal."

 _Molly_ , thought Sherlock, _was always more deserving of the respect that I never used to give her._

"We talked a lot about scars that day," Violet continued, "Because you and Dad have so many and I wanted to know what it meant."

Sherlock remembers Violet, no more than seven at the time, asking about the ragged scars on his stomach and ribs and back, and how he told her: "Some bad men hurt me rather badly, but I phoned your father and grandma and they sang to me, so I decided not to die."

"She says that some scars are what life gives you for being careless or unlucky, but at least you can learn something from them. Then, she says, some scars you get because you took risks so you could grow. And then, she says, some scars you get because you choose them, so you can protect someone you love or something that matters."

Sherlock thinks about all of his scars; the ones he got through carelessness and bad luck; the ones he got through risk. The ones he chose.

"Those scars you have... you got those making sure nobody hurt Dad and Uncle Greg and Mrs H. Molly says those scars are like... sort of like badges that love makes in your skin."

Sherlock pulls the car into the driveway behind Greg's sedan. Violet undoes her seatbelt and reaches across the seat to wrap him in an awkward sideways hug.

"If I'm ever that lonely, I'll tell you," she promises, "But I never will be."

He gathers his girl close, his nose in her hair, revelling in the miracle of her. _No_ , he promises her silently, _you never will be._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stories referenced here include Silence and Lullaby and ACD canon 'The Blue Carbuncle'.


End file.
